Posted on 12/21/2006 6:26:25 AM PST by shrinkermd
...First, it's wrong to believe the uninsured are willfully irresponsible. Last year in Massachusetts, for example, only 6 percent of uncompensated health care went to families with reported incomes greater than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. A full 42 percent of care went to individuals reporting no income.
Further, high-income people without insurance are voluntarily penalizing themselves by paying more taxes than they need to -- tax revenue that the government can use however it wants, including paying for uncompensated hospital care.
And in any event, those who do not want to be insured, whatever their income, will find a way around the mandate. Just look at automobile insurance: Even though it is mandatory in all but three states, one in seven drivers on our roads remains uninsured.
Finally, the nation would be better served if America's lawmakers stopping piling more regulations onto a system that's already absurdly overregulated. Far better to deregulate health insurance and hospitals than to force us into a system that doesn't serve our needs. Then we could shop for the precise care we need, which would improve quality while lowering costs.
After all, mandatory food insurance might provide everyone with sustenance for a while. But eventually, we'd all be worse off. No one would learn to grocery shop or cook. And the entire nation would eat out for every single meal -- breakfast, lunch, dinner -- until we all went broke.
Health insurance is no different. The system needs more choice, not more coercion.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Somebody at the Compost is gonna lose their job for allowing this non-PC editorial valuable propaganda space.....
I did not even see a doctor from the time I was 35 until I was 40. Why should I be forced to pay insurance fees for something I don't need.
--in the WaPo, this is astounding--
"Far better to deregulate health insurance and hospitals than to force us into a system that doesn't serve our needs. Then we could shop for the precise care we need, which would improve quality while lowering costs."
"The system needs more choice, not more coercion."
The author is right on the mark. Getting Government out of healthcare is the answer.
Amen.
And the John Edwards type lawyers. If a lawyer does not enter a hospital on a stretcher, they should leave on one.
No problem not paying while you "don't need it"...just make sure you have funds on hand to cover your medical bills once you "do need it." Because once you've been diagnosed with a disease or condition, you won't be getting private health insurance to cover it. Maybe group would cover it without a pre-existing clause...but maybe not, if you hadn't been insured before.
This is all about insurance companies wanting more money so they make the healthy that don't use their service to pay for those that do and, by government that wants all the money going to insurance companies so they can take it themselves.
My point is...you never know when you're not going to be healthy or when you'll need health care.
You can go from being the picture of health one day, doing all the right things, to being in a hospital the next, needing surgery, or being diagnosed with a chronic illness that requires costly medicine.
Because that's how insurance works. If you don't pay in while it's unneeded the insurance company could not afford to pay for your medical needs later (just like social security). The entire insurance system needs healthy individuals paying in to cover all the unhealthy ones.
Insurance companies need to start incenting healthy individuals by giving them breaks on their premiums. If you exercise regularly and have an annual check up that shows good health you should get a break on your rates. That would encourage the lazy and highly unhealthy sods to do something about their condition rather than wait until it's a medical crisis we all have to pay for. It would also help the insurance companies tailor their medical plans around groups with more healthy behaivors instead of padding the rates to account for large numbers of unhealthy plan participants.
National healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen and an invitation to social engineering by the fed. Not to mention the amount of tax that will have to be collected to fund such a beast. Even with the national plan individuals will still need private insurance (just like in the UK) and that will pisss off the liberals enough to continually try and expand benefits of the national plan.
The author cites Massachusetts uncompensated care as mostly going to people with incomes less than 200 percent of federal poverty level. Keep in mind that the Massachusetts insurance mandate and its vaunted connector stipulates that people under 300 percent of FPL are forced onto Medicaid, not private insurance. Essentially the Massachusetts mandate was a Medicaid extension, not that they say that in the public relations blah blah blah. It had to be because people without assets don't need health insurance and can't afford it even if they want it in states like Massachusetts which have regulatory mandates out the wazoo.
Medicaid expansions increase the cost of health care for people who have private insurance because Medicaid is probably the biggest generator of uncompensated care because it pays below cost, a LOT below cost.
You can read about the flim flams in uncompensated care statistics in Massachusetts in a 2005 auditor's report at http://www.mass.gov/ig/publ/poolrpt.pdf. The nonsense that goes on with public money is eye opening.
Massachusetts reforms have proven so successful as power grabs that they'll be coming soon to your state.
My husband was laid off in 2001 and we decided to go without health insurance while he started up his own business. I got very ill (required surgery, etc) and was upfront with the hospital and doctors along the way. They charged us about half the insurance rate and allowed us to pay it off over a few months. There was nothing second class about my care. Just a financial transaction.
My 83 year old mother injured her knee a few months ago, and had to stay in a "Rehabilitation Health Center", basically a skilled nursing facility, with rehab, for three weeks, without insurance. The bill runs to neary $5,000, for three weeks.
Her income is just slightly too high for medicaid to foot the bill. Neither she nor I nor the rest of the family can pay that bill, so the facility is allowing us to pay it off over an extended time period.
You are both right and wrong, because there is a fallacy in our health insurance.
If you were talking about any normal "insurance", your statement would be silly. I pay for car insurance and homeowner's insurance, and I not only do not collect from them each year, but I'm glad. But I NEED them, in case an ACCIDENT happens, which is something that cannot be predicted.
And I bet you are VERY happy not to collect on your life insurance.
I take my car to the shop for regular servicing, but OF COURSE my insurance doesn't cover that, it would be STUPID to have INSURANCE cover normal costs.
But in "medical insurance", they DO cover your "normal costs". They pay for all sorts of things that are not at all accidents or unexpected. That's why it costs so much, and why we overconsume. It costs so much because it covers everything, and we overconsume because we already paid for it so we might as well use it.
What we need is catastrophic insurance, and then let individuals decide whether to buy MAINTENANCE agreements like you might for your appliances, or simply to pay for your own normal repairs as they come up.
Then we could consider requiring people to either have catastrophic insurance, or having them sign over their rights to free care if they can afford catastrophic insurance (which should be cheaper) but refuse to buy it, like some states do with car insurance, and some people apparently do with their homeowners insurance.
But right now almost all the health insurance we have is actually a socialized system, where we all pay the same amount but we don't expect the same results. Older people make out like bandits in our system, and there's a lot of us and we vote, so good luck.
If we made it illegal for companies to provide health care, and people had to buy their own, and the companies could charge for "groups" based on the group risk, including age factors, it would all be a lot fairer, but old people might pay just as much or more than they do now.
Of course, they pay less in car insurance so it should all work out....
The Amish don't believe in health insurance but doctors love them because they pay quickly -- and in cash.
I don't think HMOs and health insurance has improved anything.
No, they haven't. How could they?
Look at it this way: Healthcare is provided by healthcare providers, and paid for by healthcare consumers. The money moves from the treated person to the person doing the treating...and this is true whether the money routes through an employer, the government, an insurance company's risk pool, or what have you. Eventually the funding can all be traced back to the person being treated, if not specifically, then collectively.
Now add an insurance company into the mix. The insurer adds zero value to the healthcare being provided to the consumer. However, the insurer has to make enough money to pay its infrastructure expenses, meet its payroll, and pay a dividend to investors. In the grand scheme they contribute nothing, yet they take money out of the process.
This can't be an improvement.
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